Exactly 40 years ago a wise man saw the future. People did not listen...

[Caliman73]

39. My wife always says that about President Obama too.

She often tells me that I explain things at too high a level for the average person. That saddens and scares me.

I do understand that people have less opportunity for education, that there is major disparity in the quality of schools around the country. I also know that people are just trying to survive and don't have the time or inclination to get involved in the intricacies of policy. The concern I have is that those intricacies, those people that we send to municipal, county, state, and national office they really do have effects on our ability to survive. It may not be apparent from one day to the next, but when you start seeing less in your paycheck or your pensions start to run out of money, or your roads start to become filled with potholes and bumps, that affects your life, so we do need to pay attention and make choices based on things we need to do, not on whether we would want to have a beer with a person.

A poster on DU, someone I respect and who appears to really understand the political process was talking about "ordinary voters" and several people who responded asked, "What is an 'ordinary voter'?" There was a mention of "pocketbook" issues but at least to me, there did not appear to be a complete answer. Some of the responses were, "If you hang out on a political forum, you are not an ordinary voter." It left me wondering if by "ordinary voter" the poster meant people who could not or chose not to take the time to be informed and involved with the issues.

People talk about "not making things political" EVERYTHING is political. When people use specific religious beliefs to restrict rights to others, that is political. When people make up a budget that favors a certain industry or a certain economic framework, that is political. When people make decisions of how we deal with foreign trade, immigration, and drug policy, those things are political. Who we chose to represent our needs and make laws, and carry them out is inherently political and it affects us in profound ways.

We need intelligent people with good character to represent our interests and make good policy, but we also have to be able to challenge and direct them with clarity. We need to understand what is going on if we want to try to fix it.